Album Review: Witch Mountain

Cauldron of the Wild (Profound Lore)

[HEAVY METAL] Witch Mountain’s past two
albums have traced a stylistic devolution—not a regrettable situation,
seeing as the Portland-based sludge-metal quartet (which features WW
contributor Nathan Carson on drums) has defined its 15-year career by
teaching new tricks to the old dogs of metal’s thunderous roots.

Following close on the heels of 2011 comeback album South of Salem, Cauldron of the Wild
continues Witch Mountain’s process of reverse aging. Behind the
story-song mythos of “Lanky Rae” and the foot-dragging fuzz of “Shelter”
hides a devotion to the Precambrian forms of metal that still made an
open secret of their debts to blues and psychedelic rock.

Cauldron of the Wild
takes Black Sabbath’s down-tempo grind and follows the style to its
logical endgame. The shortest of the LP’s six tracks clocks in at 5½
minutes, a natural consequence of composing your songs exclusively from
breakdowns. Whereas on previous releases, Witch Mountain made room for
occasional interludes of technical thrashing, Cauldron of the Wild relegates its sonic interest solely to the dirge.

As on South of Salem,
Ula Plotkin’s vocals steal the show. Able to produce back-to-back
Platonic examples of a crystalline, Valkyrie’s alto as well as a
subdemonic growl, Plotkin serves as the deciding factor in pushing Witch
Mountain a head above its doom-metal compatriots.

Cauldron of the Wild
closes out with “Never Now”—a nine-minute slow-burner that cuts Plotkin
loose near the five-minute mark and lets her tear her way through the
track’s remainder like a gale-force wind. On an album predisposed to
overdosing on its colossal scale, it’s impressive that its best moments
can still stand out as legitimately epic.

SEE IT: Witch Mountain plays Backspace on Saturday, June 23, with Lord
Dying and Spellcaster. 9 pm. $10. All ages.